Criminal Justice News

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The
gang problem that plagues our communities has cut across state and
district lines, even across national boundaries. But it has also
broken through the barriers that we have built to separate the inmates
of our nation’s prisons from the American public.

The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, or ABT, launched its brutal,
murderous and racist ideology within the prisons of the state of Texas.
Unfortunately, ABT then unleashed a violent crime wave that jumped the
prison walls and spread like a virus, infecting communities throughout
this region.
Over the course of years, Department of Justice prosecutors worked
with our law enforcement partners to develop the evidence necessary to
bring the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas to justice. We have used every
law enforcement tool and technique to protect the communities impacted
by ABT’s brutal crimes.

And today, we are announcing sweeping convictions that strike at the
heart of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas: 73 convictions in five federal
districts in cases prosecuted by the Department of Justice’s Criminal
Division; 36 convictions in the case we prosecuted here with the U.S.
Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. Every single ABT
defendant charged in this district has now been found guilty of
serious, violent gang crimes.

Now, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is a highly structured,
disciplined organization. At the top of its organizational chart were
five generals, who ran the organization with an iron fist, issuing
orders to kill and maim. In this case, we arrested – and have now
convicted – all five of ABT’s active generals, decapitating the gang’s leadership.

But ABT was more than just five ruthless generals. Those generals
used a host of gang members in leadership positions to control their
regions, relying on ABT majors and captains and sergeants-at-arms to
spread racial hatred and violence. Again, we arrested – and have now
convicted – the majors, captains and sergeants-at-arms of each of the
five ABT regions.

Below them were the soldiers of ABT. And we arrested – and have now
convicted – those soldiers who were responsible for the most violent
crimes committed by ABT.

The result of our efforts has been a dramatic recent decrease in the
crimes committed by the ABT gang – crimes that had severely impacted the
safety and quality of life in this region.

But we will not rest. Using every tool at our disposal, we will
ensure that these ABT gang members – from the generals to the soldiers –
spend their years in federal prison paying for their crimes, not
committing new ones.

The violent gang problem is a nationwide problem. And it demands a
nationwide solution. The Criminal Division’s Organized Crime and Gang
Section is the tip of the spear in America’s fight against violent
crime.

Working in lockstep with our partners in law enforcement and in U.S.
Attorney’s Offices across the country, through sweeping gang-wide
convictions like the ones we are announcing here today, we will target
and we will dismantle the gangs that terrorize too many of our
communities.